DR. LAMB.

SIR,-In your number of September there appears, in an article ON ALPHABETIC WRITING AND HIEROGLYPHICS, WITH REMARKS ON DR. LAMB, the following passage :-" And again, after the exposition of the pictures, he (Dr. Lamb) says plainly In the above account of man's fall it will be observed, that there is no mention made of the interference of any evil spirit; and, in the whole course of the sacred history, there is not one text from which we can rightly infer that there is an order of beings such as are generally represented by fallen angels, or that sin existed before Eve's transgression.' (p. 112.) This quotation, standing by itself, without the context, may lead your readers to form very false notions of the writer's opinions upon the subject of evil spirits; and the remainder of the passage, whether the reasoning in it be correct or not, is necessary, to explain the above statement. Dr. Lamb proceeds—

Divines find a difficulty in reconciling the sin and rebellion of man with that state of innocence in which he was created. It is, indeed, hardly credible that any creature, endowed with reason, should transgress the commandment of his Creator, especially with so heavy a curse annexed to the transgression thereof; and they seem to think that this can be got over by transferring the original guilt to another class of beings. Now, surely, this is explaining one moral phenomenon by the arbitrary assumption of another, far more difficult to explain than the former one. If it be a thing incredible, that man, left to his own powers, should sin, how much more incredible is it, that an order of angels, who enjoyed much nearer communion with God, and far excelled men in every intellectual faculty, should be the authors of sin? But I will proceed to examine the evidence which the word of God affords us upon this subject. I will consider those texts which may have conduced to the generally received opinions: the total silence of scripture respecting such beings, and the positive statements of our Lord, and his inspired apostles, respecting the devil and his angels. I may here be allowed to guard the reader against any mistake respecting the object I am pursuing. I am not attempting to prove that satanic influence has not existed, or does not exist, but that the authors of it are not fallen angels, and had no existence before Eve's transgression. There are two passages, which may be thought by some to establish the received opinions: "For if God spared not, &c.-should live ungodly." (2 Pet. ii., 5-6.) And again; "I will therefore put you in remembrance-eternal fire." (Jude, 5-7.) The two passages evidently allude to the same event; and the explanation of one will serve for both.*

The word ayyeλos is constantly used, and without any reference to spiritual beings, by the later Jews and early Christian writers. We need no other proof of the meaning it obtained, than the use made of it by St. John, in the Apocalypse-the head or chief of each church is called the angel (ayyedos) of that church. These writers adopted this meaning from the word (malac) in Hebrew signifying "a king," and likewise "an angel," or "a messenger.” When they wished to express the word (malac) in Greek, they made use of the word dryeλos. St. Peter is warning the Christ'ians, to whom his epistle is addressed, against the false teachers, who were introducing damnable heresies, and would thus bring upon their hearers the judgments of God (ver. i.); and he calls their attention to three examples of God's judgment upon apostate sinners; the first is that of the vengeance of God upon the angels, [ayeλos, DN,D,] “who sinned" in the corresponding passage in St. Jude, "who kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation." Some commentators consider the apostles in these passages as alluding to the judgments of God, brought upon the Cuthites at the building of the tower of Babel. The account given of that event is so concise in the Bible, that very little can thence be known of the circumstances attending it; but we have the most undoubted evidence, in the traditions of every nation, that some powerful leaders-N (melacim)—were at that period dispersed by a manifestation of God's power; and they are universally represented as being driven into Tartarus,

Sometimes their cries are, that the old universities are mere nests of bigotry and prejudice, and that the clergy, who are the chief teachers, are ignorant, foolish, &c. Then, again, there are bitter complaints of dissenters being excluded from this bad education; and loud demands are made for a new university, where there may be no bigotry, and real learning may abound. The demand is answered by this machine for degrees. Now a new outcry is made, that there is a shameful monopoly in the matter, and that the provision, that only those persons who have been educated in institutions authorized by the King, shall be allowed to have degrees, is a disgrace; that all persons, however educated, ought to be allowed this indispensable privilege, &c. &c. Till it is granted, all will go wrong; and we have no freedom and no justice! So that the demand is, not for a place for good or cheap education, but for a degreean empty name-when separate from education. What foolish creatures men are! And what a blessed project it is, to found an university when the statutes are made at the Home Office, to be reformed by the criticisms of the "True Sun," " Morning Chronicle," and "Examiner" newspapers!-ED.

*St. Jude, in place of the deluge, cites the judgment of God upon the Israchtes in the Wilderness.

or hell. I am inclined, however, to think, that the apostles allude to the great antediluvian apostasy of the family of Cain, briefly recorded in the fourth chapter of Genesis: "And Cain went out and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. . . . and he builded a city, and called it after the name of his son Enoch." There is reason for concluding, from the third verse of the sixth chapter of Genesis, that "God had striven" with the human race, by some awful judg ments, before he brought a deluge upon the earth, to destroy man from the face thereof." St. Peter, in his first epistle, speaks of "spirits in prison," (iii. 19,) the same as those he alludes to in this epistle as "delivered into chains of darkness," and "reserved unto judgment;" and, in that passage, he leaves no doubt as to whom he refers, by adding, "which sometimes were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing." The apostles call the attention of Christians to these examples, recorded in the Bible, of God openly punishing mankind, by judgments from heaven, as warnings against the influence of false teachers. And no argument can be drawn from these passages, unsupported by collateral evidence, in favour of the generally received opinions.

There is a perfect silence in scripture respecting any fallen angels, or the existence of sin prior to Adam's transgression. Our Lord, in his discourses, never uses an expression which implies such a notice. We might have expected, especially in those which attended his ejection of evil spirits, to have found some expression which might lead us to know that they had been angels of light. The devils, when allowed to speak themselves, never insinuate such a thing. When our Lord cast out that evil spirit which was called Legion, he said: "Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" (Matt. viii. 29.) And in the parallel passage, (Luke viii. 28,) he says, "What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I beseech thee torment me not." From this we learn that these demons knew Jesus, and acknowledged him as the Messiah, and that they were looking forward to a day when he would be their judge; i.e., their state was that of guilty individuais awaiting the day of judgment. Our Lord gives frequent descriptions of the day of judgment; the angels of God are constantly introduced in that scene, and all mankind are represented as standing before the judgment seat of Christ; but no mention is made of any separate class of beings like to fallen angels. "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. .... Then shall he say also to them on his left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."

Can anything be clearer than that in this passage, by "the devil and his angels" is meant the whole body of wicked souls from the creation to the day of judgment? this place is prepared for them, as the kingdom of heaven for the saints. It is the same as if our Saviour said, "prepared for you, the devil, and his angels." Our Lord, also, in another remarkable passage, points out Satan, or Beelzebub, constantly spoken of as the head, chief, or first of the evil spirits. The Jews were boasting, that they were the children of Abraham. Jesus said unto them, "If ye be Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him." (John, viii. 44.) The passage in the original is : Ἐκεῖνος ἀνθρωποκτόνος ἦν ἀπ' ἀρχῆς, “He was a MANSLAYER (from or at THE BEGINNING;" clearly pointing out and defining Cain. St. Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, says, "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God." Now, St. Paul was well aware that the heathen offered no sacrifices to any fallen angels, but to the manes of departed heroes; and the apostle very properly terms their spirits devils, as we know they were most of them prodigies of cruelty and debauchery.

And it is merely probable that the satanic influence, which has been exercised over the human race, should be the consequence rather than the cause of sin; part of that punishment which was brought upon mankind by the fall. And is it not improbable that man should, when first created, be exposed to the very greatest of all curses, the influence of a powerful evil spirit? The very notion interrupts the whole plan of redemption. Our Lord frequently states that the main object of his coming was to destroy the power of Satan. Now, if Satan's power over man existed before the fall, our Lord came to redeem us from a certain evil that existed, independent of man's sin; and had Adam never transgressed, we should have stood in need of a Saviour. God might, in righteous judgment upon our race, leave us to the influence of those wicked departed spirits whose condition was the result of man's rebellion. And it is not at all difficult to imagine that wicked souls, in a state of hopeless misery, if permitted by God, would endeavour to seduce others into the same state. This view of the subject, while it brings upon man the whole guilt of sin and rebellion against God, magnifies his mercy, and enhances the worth of the Saviour."

Dr. Lamb then proceeds to trace the origin of the notion of fallen angels to the Persian Mythology of the Zendevesta. There is one other passage in the letter of your correspondent to which I would briefly allude; it is as follows:

"If Dr. Lamb be right, the authority of the first eleven chapters of Genesis is not worth a straw; for there it is plainly stated, that the serpent did beguile the woman, which Dr. Lamb says is false, and is a wrong interpretation of the original picture. The writer of the third chapter of Genesis has erred, therefore, in his account of the fall, and therefore could not have been inspired. The Jews, and the whole Christian church, and particularly the church of England, are utterly mistaken in thinking that these chapters are the word of God. According to Dr. Lamb, they are no such thing; they are nothing more than a bungling description of a picture, which the writer, who saw it, did not understand, but of which Dr. Lamb, who never saw it, has found out the true meaning. But if so important a part of the Bible as the history of man's fall, be the production of an uninspired bungler, what authority have we for believing, that the rest is the word of God?"

* See Bryant, Mythology, Vol. III.

Now, whether Dr. Lamb be right or wrong in his notions respecting the hieroglyphic of the alphabet, the above paragraph is not a fair statement of his conclusions. He maintains that the eleven first chapters of Genesis, in the Hebrew, are a correct translation of the hieroglyphics, and that the translator fully understood the pictures; but he maintains that errors and mistakes have arisen from the adoption of the Septuagint version. This is a matter for fair discussion; and Dr. Lamb may be either right or wrong, without any diminution of the authority for the inspiration of the books of Moses.

I hope the length of the quotation will not exclude this article from your pages, as it is necessary, for the sake of truth, to present to your readers not only the bare proposition, but the reasoning by which it is attempted to prove it. ALPHA.

LAY LEGISLATION FOR THE CHURCH.

MR. EDITOR,-You have more than once expressed your surprise that the change in the provision appointed for the clergy should have passed with the total silence of the clergy. The explanation of that phenomenon is found in the utter disunion, or in the entire want of community, which has so long existed in that body; if it has not ceased to exist, it has, since the convocation met to deliberate, ceased to act. To the neglect of holding that general assembly of the national church may be attributed the sentence which is passed upon the church by the lay parliament. Without the assembling of the clergy in the constituted divisions of the church, which are rural deaneries, dioceses, and provinces, the church cannot be preserved., The clergy are the representatives of the church, personæ ecclesia, and upon them depends its maintenance-not for their own benefit, but that "peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may be established among us for all generations;" and upon this view the general conduct of the clergy must be measured in having, by their supineness, suffered the security of the establishment to be withdrawn, and the church to be removed from its station as a national church. When the first difficulty occurred in the church, the ministers and witnesses met. (Acts, xv. 6,) "And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter;" and their proceedings and decision formed the precedent, which, till these latter times, was followed for the future conduct of the church. (Acts, xv. 22,) Tótɛ ἔδοξεν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις καὶ τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις σὺν ὅλῃ τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ. The apostles did not govern the church without the presbyters-" The apostles and presbyters came together for to consider of this matter." And the style of their decision, dožev k. 7. e. (Acts, xv. 22,) is the authoritative form in which the canons, or laws, of the church must appear. But not only are no new canons thus formed to meet emergent occasions, but the ancient discipline of the church is totally laid aside. With the loss of our political character, we have recovered our ecclesiastical independence, and must use it, or give up our claim to be considered a church at all. If the censures and excommunication of the church will have now no political consequence, cannot we free ourselves from the anomaly of committing to the grave the earthly

remains of the open blasphemer and infidel with the expression of all the hopes belonging to those who die in the Lord, or in the community of saints? The church surely has authority over its own members of censure and of excommunication. But not only the unbaptized, but those who die not in real communion with the church, may now be associated with those who, in the judgment of the church, await the resurrection of the just. Without such discipline as I speak of, the church cannot exercise its functions as the instrument of its Author, of purifying unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

The Christian church is now brought back again to what it was previous to the age of Constantine-it has ceased to be a national church. Till the empire became Christian, such an anomaly was never contemplated as that of the governors of the state interfering with the appointment of bishops. The king's council may now consist, not only of members not in communion with the church, but of members who are not Christians; and, as the principle has been acted upon in the case of Roman catholics, of the patronage of the church not being exercised by those who are not in communion with her-if such an anomaly be permitted as that of the appointment of bishops proceeding from a council which may be so constituted, then must the church resign her ecclesiastical title. And, since the members of the Roman-catholic church have been restored to every political principle, the same independence which is allowed to that church in the choice of their bishops must be granted to the reformed catholic church. Without that choice, and the power of exercising discipline over its members, and of excommunication, the Anglican catholic church, I repeat, cannot maintain its claim to be considered a church at all.* Παρρησια.

AFTERNOON DUTY.

SIR,--I am placed in a country parish where the population is somewhat above a thousand, all agricultural, scattered in small hamlets, and single houses, over a space about five miles square. The church is tolerably central. When I came to the parish I found the regular duty of it to be, full service in the morning, and prayers in the afternoon. Of the morning service I am not now going to speak, although the attendance is far from satisfactory; but I am told it is much better than formerly. It is of the evening congregation I have most to complain. When I came to the parish, which is somewhat more than six years ago, I commenced a species of catechising, sometimes from the catechism, and sometimes from the scriptures, and I got a person to take charge of the singing, of which there had been none. A few more persons came than came to the prayers alone, but a very few. In the third year of my residence, during the summer months, I had service at six o'clock, and preached a sermon, and I then sometimes counted fifty, besides my Sunday-school; but when I commenced the same plan next summer, such strong remonstrances were

Should we not inquire into the exact state of things in the Roman church, and the Greek church, and know exactly how it is, and has been? Let the history of the Placitum Regum be made out, and we shall take a less gloomy view than this.-ED.

made to me by respectable and religious persons, as to the incovenience of having servants from home in the evening, and the actual mischiefs which arose from it, that I returned to the afternoon, still preaching a sermon. My congregation fell off a little, but still it was a considerable improvement upon what I had formerly reckoned. In talking, however, with some of my people, I found they said that the service concluded too late for them to be able to be present, on account of the necessity of attending to the milking of their cows; I therefore curtailed both the singing and my sermon, so as to reduce the whole service to about an hour's duration. The result of this has been, that one farmer's family regularly attends; but there is no improvement in the average attendance; at least, I cannot perceive any: lately some individuals attend more frequently, but others less so; and I sometimes see persons sleeping, which I never did at my catechising. My evening sermons will be dropped sometime in November, and will not be resumed till Easter; and meanwhile I am desirous of determining what to do for the next year. There are three courses open :-1. To go on as I am doing-2. To preach a sermon of the usual length, with the ordinary proportion of singing-3. To catechise throughout the year. I am anxious to have the opinions of your correspondents, at least such of them as live in agricultural parishes, and where the people have been mostly in the habit of contenting themselves with one service. And as my own opinion is in favour of catechising, I should be glad of the experience of those of your correspondents who have practised catechising for a series of years, and in scattered agricultural populations, and particularly where there is no choir, no organ, and very imperfect singing. I should be glad that your pages might be open, with as little restriction as possible, to replies, for it appears to me that they might be of very general benefit, at least in this neighbourhood; but if that is inconvenient, I should be glad if, through you, any opening could be made for a private correspondence, and particularly with the author of the letter, p. 37, 38, and of that in p. 265, 266, in the second volume of this magazine. I may add, that my bodily strength does not admit of my doing much in the Sunday-school, in addition to my other duties, and that there are impediments to my doing anything at all on the week days. I am, Sir, yours, &c. J. B- -N.

Leigh, Sept. 20th, 1836.

SERVICE FOR PRISONERS.

SIR,-In the August number of the "British Magazine," your correspondent "L. M. N." wishes to know if it be lawful for a clergyman, officiating in prisons, to make any selection from the book of common prayer, as he considers the daily service unfit for prisoners.

Allow me to acquaint him that, for two reasons, it is decidedly unlawful. 1st. Because it is a clergyman's duty to read the prayers only as he is ordered, without either omissions or additions. If he think that they require correction, let him apply to the proper authorities; but one who has sworn "to conform to the liturgy of the VOL. X.-Nov. 1836.

4 B